"Count Dooku seeks to spring a Separatist prisoner from Republic captivity, but his profile prevents him from getting close enough to set in motion his malevolent plan.

"Enter Cad Bane, the galaxy's most fearsome bounty hunter, as ruthless as he is deadly. He is quintessentially cold, cruel and calculating -- and when the price is right, he can't be stopped. Backed by Dooku and the Separatists, he's bringing his unique skill set and impressive arsenal to bear against the very heart of the Republic. Bane brazenly brings the fight to the Senate's doorstep, with a rogues gallery of galactic scum as his allies."

"This episode gave us the chance to do something totally different, to go in a new direction with the series," said supervising director Dave Filoni. "We've seen the good guys and the bad guys, from the top of the food chain to the cannon fodder on the front lines. Now we get to look at some of the opportunists, at the mercenaries operating without a side. It's a whole new dynamic we haven't seen yet, and at the same time it's very Star Wars."

Patterned after the gunslingers of spaghetti Westerns, Bane relishes being a bad guy. He is unflappable in the face of danger, and even welcomes the opportunity to pit his formidable skills against the legendary prowess of the Jedi Knights.

Filoni says the inspiration from the red-eyed bounty hunter came directly from George Lucas.

"He had a clear idea for this bad guy who plays by his own set of rules, whose moral code is dictated by his fee," Filoni said. "And he had sketches and concepts dating back to the original films. If Boba Fett was sort of the Man With No Name of the Star Wars galaxy, then Cad Bane is his counterpoint -- his Lee Van Cleef. So that's how we built the character, with that in mind. It's a cool parallel to our world, and a cool balance in theirs."

DC COMICS ROUNDUP

DC Comics has announced that 100 Bullets #100, the final issue of the Vertigo series by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, has been expanded to 48 pages.

The issue, scheduled to arrive in stores on April 15, will carry a cover price of $4.99.

In other DC news:

* The Unwritten #1, the new Vertigo monthly that reunites the Lucifer team of writer Mike Carey and artist Peter Gross, will be featured in a Vertigo View preview in Fables #83.

The preview will include the cover, six story pages and an introductory text piece.

Fables #83 will be in stores on April 16. The Unwritten, a 40-page, $1 issue, will be in stores on May 13.

* Scott Kolins is providing a variant cover for Wonder Woman #31, which will be in stores on April 29.

* New in-store dates for WildStorm's Gears of War are May 20 for #7 and June 17 for #8.

MARVEL COMICS' WOLVERINE ART APPRECIATION MONTH

Marvel Comics has announced that, in honor of Wolverine's 35th anniversary, numerous Marvel titles will feature Wolverine Art Appreciation Variant Covers in April, as part of Wolverine Art Appreciation Month.

"This is a huge year for Wolverine as he proves why he's arguably one of the most popular characters in the world," said Joe Quesada, Marvel Comics' editor-in-chief. "He's not just popular with fans but also with artists, as evidenced by how many of today's top comic artists jockey for a chance to draw him. This got us thinking: what if Wolverine had been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years? What great, classic artists would want a crack at drawing a Wolverine cover?"

Among the titles with the Wolverine variants are Agents of Atlas #3, Amazing Spider-Man #590, Captain Britain and MI13 #12 and Secret Warriors #3.